This article includes the following topics and has a regional focus on China, South Korea, Japan and partly India:

1. Demographics on social media use in Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, India)
2. Developing a social media strategy that pays into SEO and includes PR activities
3. Explanation of social media channels

1. Demographics on social media use in Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, India)

The following graphs and tables show information about the use and penetration of social media in China, Japan, South Korea and India.

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Channel usage per country:

Every market is different:

Still, different markets show different user behavior. A reason for this could be the maturity and the development of a country in general. In the following table the item “research / find products to buy” gives an indication: The more developed the country the higher this shopping and comparison related behavior is listed. That’s no proof of course, but an indicator.

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2. Developing a social media strategy that pays into SEO and includes PR activities

You need to have a strategy to fully leverage the potential of social media for SEO. All activities should be coordinated by one person/department. It’s possible that different departments participate in the social media execution, e.g. PR, sales, customer support, but one coordinator needs to remain the helm.

Steps of a social media strategy:

1. Understand your target group. Listen and learn and collect consumer insights. Find out where your target group likes to stay online.
2. Your target group consists of different kind of online contributors. Define the right channel for the respective user group.
3. Execute the channels.
4. Make sure that channel manager communicate with each other to leverage content and create links
5. Track, collect more consumer insights, learn more and use this information to refine your approach.

3. Explanation of social media channels

SEO/search engine results:
All content created in the channels will finally be picked up by search engines and add to your visibility especially for brand and product related keywords. It’s important that good and high-quality content is available in the search engine result pages to create upmost influence. If you do a search for your product or brand you will notice that search engine results are consumer dictated.

Just test yourself for your brand name or product name. How many results do you find among the first 20 results that are user-generated content, i.e. blog posts, forum discussions, video uploads, product reviews, Q&A sites? And how many results are based on your own distributed content, i.e. own website, press releases,etc.?

Blogs:
The majority of blogs in the blogosphere are personal blogs and niche blogs which generally don’t have many views. But they are observed by peers and category specialists or found in the search engines. A good story from a small blog can create some good buzz. On the other hand, a negative product or brand comment/experience can spark the flame. The mega-blogs with million of readers certainly have a strong impact when you get some coverage there. Blog marketing is an essential part of your online marketing communication strategy and goes hand-in-hand with online PR.

Forums:
In China, traditional forums and BBS are still the leading channel of user-generated content. More users contribute to a
forum than to a social network or than write a blog. But also for other countries, forums are an equally important channel.  Forums are mostly expert communities that focus around a certain topic or category. There are always a couple of power contributors who are responsible for most of the content. But for the normal consumer, forums are a powerful and very influencing source of information. Moreover, forums have the characteristic that very few people participate, but many, may people read. Also, for marketers forums are a valuable source of consumer insights.

Reviews:
Reviews should be divided into editorial reviews and consumer reviews. Editorial reviews are often based on product samples that a marketer sends out to a blog or review site to write a profound but independent review. Oftentimes this is part of the PR strategy of a marketer. These editorial reviews oftentimes are also extremely detailed and critical. Reviewers have a high standard and lots of professional experience and see things and specs from a different point of view.

Consumer reviews on the other hand are not as detailed and deep. Often they consist just of a few sentences. But they are an extremely important influencing factor. Web pages of products listed on shopping portals or price-comparison sites which have no consumer reviews normally look very boring: Product image, specs, price. That’s it. Totally exchangable, nothing convincing. A web shop which has consumer reviews and star ratings for the products listed has a much higher conversion rates than shops that have only product data. Products with many reviews and ratings are considered popular and worth buying than products without any user experience comments.

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Social networks:
Facebook and social networks are a big hype, but when it comes to your online marketing mix you should priorize what can have a big impact and what not. Social networks should certainly be part of your online activity but expectations should be realistc. Remember that only a low percentage of Facebook pages have more than a thousand fans. And to get in the area of 100,000 fans you already must have a strong brand awareness in public life. Before you engage in Facebook be sure where your fans are and what content you can provide to them. Be sure that you have the resources to communicate with them on a daily basis.

Source: The pictures are taken from a globalwebindex presentation and  you can find them on slideshare.

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Among the findings of the report, which looked into the habits of over-60s in Shanghai and Beijing, showed that telecommunications ranks fourth after food, daily needs and payment for utilities in terms of expenditure. What’s more, 85 per cent of respondents keep in touch with their friends through email.

China’s senior citizens number 143 million. The study from Ogilvy & Mather Greater China is designed to help brands understand the spending power of a demographic with a combined annual income of up to Rmb 400 billion (US$58 billion).

The elderly in Shanghai and Beijing, shop at supermarkets (84 per cent) and hypermarkets (96 per cent). Seniors also invest in taking care of their health and taking preventive measures. Seventy-six per cent do some form of regular exercise and 39 per cent take dietary supplements and/or vitamins.

The agency says the findings have strategic business implications for brands in obvious sectors such as healthcare, but also for travel and leisure, financial services, technology, food and beverage and retail brands. Per capita spending power of Chinese senior citizens is expected to rise from US$1,620 in 2005 to US$4,112 in 2015.

Kunal Sinha, executive director, discovery at Ogilvy & Mather Greater China, said: “We want to appeal to marketers who are obsessed with marketing to youth and haven’t woken up to senior citizens in the China market. Brand managers and marketing directors usually think there are no new opportunities with the ‘aging’ profile.”

He added: “The lesson for us is evident: old people in China have changed faster than our previous beliefs about them. Brands, corporations and government agencies can either choose to treat aging as a problem, or they can view the optimism and adaptation capacity of this generation as an opportunity.”

Combining ethnographic and quantitative methods, Ogilvy Discovery launched the study in March 2008 in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Chengdu and Foshan, a small town in Guangdong province.

Responses were collected in equal proportions from 1,100 men and women between the ages of 60-75, and 12 seniors in Beijing, Chengdu and Foshan were filmed over two days each. The 55-minute TV documentary will be uploaded to YouTube.

Source: brandrepublic

Demographic trends in China show that the population is continuously increasing. The urban population which was approximately 430 million in 2001 might reach 850 million by the year 2015, and the number of cities with over 100,000 people is estimated to increase from 630 (2001) to over 1,000 (2015).

China’s urban population has grown in cities of all sizes. Nevertheless, townships of between 5,000 and 10,000 people are witnessing the fastest growth. Although efficient and effective improvements of water supply and enhancement of water treatment have progressed in China’s large cities, environmental management in the expanding towns and townships remains a challenge. Pollution in these smaller urban settings is not well monitored and their development plans include only limited provision to concentrate on.
Source: Klako

Once again the results are just amazing how heavily the Chinese users are adopted to the Internet and how intensively they use it. Advertisers in China should really have an eye on these studies as they contain very important information. And they should also raise some questions how to allocate marketing budgets, how much weight put on e.g. TV spots, how much attention on online marketing.

Embracing life online

• I live some of my life online: CN 86%, US 42%
• Online is as real as offline: CN 37%, US 16%
• I have a parallel life online: CN 61%, US 13%

Self-expression on the web

• I have expressed personal opinions and/or written about myself online: CN 72%, US 56%
• Online I feel free to do and say things I wouldn’t do or say offline: CN 73%, US 32%
• I sometimes express myself more strongly online than I generally do in person: CN 52%, US 43%

Relationships online

• It’s perfectly possible to have real relationships online with no face-to-face contact: CN 63%, US 21%
• The Internet helps me make friends: CN 77%, US 30%
• Online interactions reduce the time and attention I have for personal interactions: CN 51%, US 20%

Expanding the sexual universe

• With the Internet I am more likely to access adult material: CN 65%, US 28%
• I have made hot dates using text messages: CN 54%, US 20%
• The Internet has broadened my sex life: CN 32%, US 11%

Compare this information to my post about Online Marketing Trends in China.

The Chinese-consumer behavior data have broad implications for American companies intent on selling consumer goods in China, Netpop said.

Among the key findings of the report, “Netpop | Nations: China and the US Web 2.0 Behavior”:

• User-generated content (consumer reviews/rating sites, forum/discussion boards, blogs, etc.) influences 58% of all purchase decisions in China, compared with 19% in the US.
• 47% of Chinese broadband users post comments to a blog, chat room, listserv or forum, compared with just 28% of American broadband users.
• Search engines are the most influential source for making purchase decisions in both countries: 46% of Chinese broadband users use a search engine to make purchase decisions vs. 25% of American broadband users.

So, why do Chinese users rely so heavily on user-generated content?

In my opinion there are two things: first, expressing your free opinion and posting it in blogs and forums is much easier in the Internet than in traditional media. Due to the facilitated access, of course. Second, advertisement in China in traditional media is often heavily misleading consumers. So, consumers often have developed a natural cautiousness to magazine, TV and outdoor ads. On the contrary, mouth-to-mouth recommendation is trusted much more. As user-generated content is nothing else than that, it is very successful.

Some results are:

• Flashy bank websites are ok for Chinese users, but not too overflashed.
• A lot of information on the homepage is no problem.
• The color scheme of German sites is a little too conservative.
• Nice pictures from daily life create an atmosphere of trust.

The whole 58-page report is available upon request. Use this contact form to get a copy.